Crawford’s latest clunker highlights growing concern for Red Sox

Crawford’s latest clunker highlights growing concern for Red Sox originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Red Sox have potential answers to a host of problems.

Should the offense sag, Triston Casas is nearing a return. If the late-inning bullpen mix needs adjusting, Chris Martin is back and reinforcements just arrived at the trade deadline. If an outfielder like Tyler O’Neill goes down, Ceddanne Rafaela can shift off shortstop or Rob Refsnyder can play every day until he returns.

There’s one problem with no obvious solutions, however, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: the starting rotation.

The Red Sox keep winning series, including this week’s showdown in Kansas City, so it may feel manageable, but the situation is deteriorating. On Wednesday alone, the Sox announced that right-hander Nick Pivetta would skip his next turn while battling arm fatigue, and then watched Kutter Crawford deliver his fourth straight clunker in an 8-4 loss to the Royals.

Add the recent struggles of ace Tanner Houck and the season-long inconsistency of Brayan Bello, and you have the recipe for a rotation that’s teetering just as the playoff push begins in earnest.

“I think as a staff right now, obviously, we’ve been struggling a little bit,” Crawford told MLB.com. “Can’t say enough good things about the offense. They’ve been carrying us since the All-Star break. They’ve been swinging the [crap] out of it. As a staff we’ve just got to get back to the drawing boards and just keep grinding. We’ll get over this hump.”

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Maybe they will, but there are reasons to believe their struggles aren’t temporary. Crawford has allowed at least five runs in each of his last four starts, including six on Wednesday night, raising his ERA above 4.00 (4.11) for the first time all season. He has become a home run machine in the process; when Bobby Witt Jr. took him deep in the first inning, it marked Crawford’s 13th long ball allowed in his last four games.

Almost as concerningly, he walked a season-high four, three of whom scored. Crawford has limited walks all season, and maybe Wednesday was an outlier, considering that Royals outfielder MJ Melendez saw 17 pitches in his two walks and Michael Massey worked a nine-pitch free pass.

But Crawford’s lack of put-away stuff spoke to the potential for fatigue, especially since he officially surpassed his career-high in innings on Wednesday.

“It’s just a really rough stretch I’m going through right now,” Crawford told MLB.com. “Probably the worst I’ve ever had in my career. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to wake up tomorrow. We’ve got to show up and just keep working.

“Body feels good. I felt good, I’ve just been getting hit. So that’s kind of what makes it a little more frustrating. Feeling good, but still getting hit and giving up runs.”

He’s not alone. Houck crossed his career-high innings threshold last month, and his command has suffered, too. He has compiled more walks than strikeouts in three of his last five starts, and that’s not what got him to the All-Star Game.

If the two young right-hander are wearing down, there are no obvious solutions. It’s hard to skip either one of them at the moment, because Pivetta needs a break and the club’s depth is almost non-existent, even after adding veteran James Paxton from the Dodgers.

Manager Alex Cora is one of the best in the game at finessing a pitching staff, but attrition is an unrelenting enemy, and if anything can derail this playoff march, it’s the fragility of the starting rotation.